In which a group of graying eternal amateurs discuss their passions, interests and obsessions, among them: movies, art, politics, evolutionary biology, taxes, writing, computers, these kids these days, and lousy educations.

* Tony Blair has gotten people in a tizzy because he has blamed a lot of crime on aspects of black culture. According to the Guardian, Blair "said people had to drop their political correctness and recognise that the violence would not be stopped 'by pretending it is not young black kids doing it'."

My own musing: When will our silly, trendy elites finally learn that "diversity" isn't everywhere, always, and automatically a good thing?

Incidentally, I like the fact that the world is a racially / ethnically / whateverly diverse place. Cool! Fun! I also like living in a diverse neck of the woods myself, a lot of bother though it often is. But I can't for the life of me understand why any of that should mean that all our micro-institutions and micro-places should be put under moral and political pressure to be as racially diverse as the world itself is. Boring! Not to mention "granting far much too much credence and authority to the diversity-crats."

Besides, wouldn't such a policy pursued to its conclusion in fact ensure homogeneity, not diversity? Should Tibet, for example, be made as "diverse" as England's elites seem to want England to be? If the diversity crowd had their way, no matter where you'd go you'd find the same humanity-slush.

So what I finally find myself wondering is: Do the propagandists for diversity in fact want to destroy real diversity?

England is still over 90% white, and is still a beautiful and prosperous place. London is insufferable, quickly becoming a caste system of underclass blacks, Oxbridge city boys, and cultural elite whiners living in a multicult parallel universe (get this, a line in a recent London play - 'Americans don't hate Islamic art. They just hate art.' true story)

But beyond London it is still a nice old place, with friendly smiles and green grass. It is quite easy to find the merry old place of myth.

The most bizarre recent development on the immigration front has been the mass influx of Poles, which has increased the Catholic segment of the population exponentially.

From the Times: "Roman Catholicism is set to become the dominant religion in Britain for the first time since the Reformation because of massive migration from Catholic countries across the world."

The Polish influx has also put large numbers of blacks and Muslims out of work (Polish avg IQ = 99 versus, well, you know)

FYI - many English are fleeing the London invasion by conquering far off lands again: whole towns in Northern France, parts of Spain, and Cyprus are now exclusively English. What a weird and wonderful world we live in!

Posted by: adrian on April 17, 2007 11:16 AM

"Do the propagandists for diversity in fact want to destroy real diversity?"

Not at all. They only want to destroy that evil, racist, plundering Western Civilization. And, of course, diversity is only valid within Western cultures. If you try to export diversity to, say, Bolivia, you'll end up with a poison dart in your forehead.

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on April 17, 2007 11:42 AM

"Do the propagandists for diversity in fact dislike real diversity?"

In these contexts, "diversity" is really an elision of a longer phrase, something like "attitudes and behaviors appropriate to a population characterized by diversity" -- ie., tolerance, respect, supporting the other fellow's self-esteem, etc. Ironically, when you encourage certain sorts of attitudes and behaviors you are in a way trying to decrease diversity.

I don't care for this usage myself, because it seems dishonest to me. It makes the idea behind it sound more liberal than it often is, which of course is your point.

Living in Seattle you get to see diversity up close and personal and it ain't pretty. We have a public middle school called African American Academy with a 98% black student enrollment; mind you this is just one middle school within the whole public school system so technically any parent can try to place his child there. It is effectively public-funded segregation for not one diversity-loving white parent chooses to send his kids there (wellk maybe one).

Diversity in the white Seattle liberal mind looks something like a pepper shaker. Sprinkle a bit here and there and everything will be OK, yu're still a liberal and not a biggoted outlander, whew.

The white liberals are not the only bad actors; there's a black ghetto class that is pandered to and never asked to straighten up and fly right. Insane intellectuals on the school board sit around inventing kooky-theory based excuses for them and their lack of involvement in their kids lives. Did you see the definition of Racism as posted by the Seattle school board last year? It is at once hilarious and heart-breaking. When did we Americans develop such an appetite for bullshit?

The MBlowhard ability to bring up dangerous subjects as though they could be discussed by reasonable people over a cup of tea never ceases to amaze me.

For people who wonder about "diversity," I suggest a simple experiment. Unlike most social engineering projects, this one can be done at home with ordinary kitchen equipment. All you need is some money, a blender, and a spoon.

Step 1: go to your local grocery store. Using the money, buy four or five different flavors of icecream - vanilla, strawberry, pistachio, mocha, mint chocolate chip, etc, etc. "Super premium" works best, but Dreyer's will do in a pinch.

Step 2: with the spoon, scoop large hunks of each flavor, chosen randomly, into the blender. Do not turn the blender on.

Step 3: observe the blender for a minute. Try to get a good picture of it in your mind.

Step 4: set blender on "Macerate" and run for 15 seconds.

Step 5: ask yourself the following question. Were the contents of the blender more "diverse" before, or after, step 4?

I don't really have a dog in this fight either way, but I have found it very humorous that Anglo-Saxon British pressure groups have begun calling themselves the "Indigenous population" to try to reframe the discussion using a notoriously loaded liberal word.

It is an attempt, so far successful, by one strand of the Anglo-American tradition to eradicate the last remnants of its competitors and achieve total world domination.

"Diversity" and "multiculturalism" are simply the modern descendants of the Puritan tradition, which evolved into "Nonconformism" in Britain and "Unitarianism" or "Transcendentalism" in the US, and finally mutated into the Progressive and Fabian political movements, which dominated the US and Britain before WWII and conquered the world in that war. This movement - call it "universalism" - has now become the culture of the global transnational elite.

The key to the riddle of "diversity" is that the traditions universalism is destroying are all real, whereas the ones it it venerates are largely invented, a la Ossian. "Kwanzaa" is typical.

I should also recommend Peter Hitchens' The Abolition of Britain as a sine qua non for anyone interested in the topic. If you think his brother Christopher is cranky...

Personally I have mixed feelings about all this, because not only was I raised a universalist, but my father was a US diplomat and as a result I once had to spend two years at a faux-English public school in Cyprus. We had a school tie (polyester), called our masters "sir," and sang Anglican hymns, I kid you not, each morn. (At least there was no "fagging.")

Given my reaction to this experience I feel it is perhaps disingenuous to compare about the "abolition of Britain." Do missionaries complain about the abolition of cannibalism? I suppose these days they probably do. Anyway, I can personally verify that there was once such a thing as Britain, and I am sorry to see it disappear beneath the waves.

Posted by: Mencius on April 17, 2007 2:38 PM

National characteristics are, though subject to surface fluctuations, quite persistent.

Of what does Britishness consist?

A deep reserve: most markedly seen in the horror of being perceived as a boaster. The flip side: a deep animus toward those who do boast.

A keen sense of humor; but dry, often self-deprecatory humor; not slapstick humor.

Have these characteristics of the British (and, to some extent, WASP Americans) disappeared? They may have submerged for a while but they are still there and will resurface, especially in times of stress.

Posted by: ricpic on April 17, 2007 4:32 PM

Laphroaig in a milkshake? Yecch. If you're rich enough, a mild single malt like Dalwhinny (sp?) would be yummy, but for normal people it's be Teacher's or Famous Grouse.

Posted by: Intellectual Pariah on April 17, 2007 5:55 PM

ricpic - most non-working-class British people I know still have those characteristics.

Posted by: adrian on April 17, 2007 6:36 PM

[Doug Anderson wrote] "Did you see the definition of Racism as posted by the Seattle school board last year?
[It is] "an indirect and largely invisible process that operates automatically..." [google it]
Indirect, invisible...hmm. What phenomenon operates in such a fashion? Ah, now I remember. A "free market"! The macro, collective, end result of individuals' day-to-day decisions. Such as people preferring the company of people like themselves. Horrors! Bring in the wise elites with the cops and judges to back them up, lest people live their lives as they see fit.

Posted by: Andrew H. Jergenson on April 17, 2007 7:00 PM

IP,

You're right - on reflection I'd just discard the "diversity shake" and drink the Laphroaig. Otherwise, bourbon or rum is probably more what's called for...

Posted by: Mencius on April 17, 2007 8:45 PM

Except for some African immigrants (whom IIRC are for the most part not in the underclass), most blacks in Britain have been there at least a full generation, often two or even three. It's not as if the country is being invaded by a horde of crime-prone Caribbeans.

Let's also be clear about diversity's origins. It seemed we had basically defeated quotas to a large extent, so watch the left and the race hustlers pull a "right" out of their hat: ta da diversity.
It is simply quotas in its Sunday clothes. The problem is that as the left and race hustlers gain more power they won't have to dress these things up in niceties.
I've had to sit there at work and listen to Latinos (Mexicans if we are being honest) actually say that Mexicans (Latinos if we're being dishonest) should be promoted. It would be pure comedy if there were more than four ounces of commons sense left in corporate America -- a spot worth of Monty Python. Mexicans (and others) have a system where they can say that they should be promoted because they are Mexicans. Why the folks with big noses in the room did not lobby for promotions based on big noses, I do not know. Integrity maybe?
sN

Posted by: sN on April 18, 2007 1:26 AM

What a conundrum! I am as sick as MB of silly PC jibber jabber. And I agree that national and local cultures are beautiful and vibrant, and that the end result of diversity-mongering is homogeneity. So yes, the tower in the sky, as always, misses its target.

But grumbling about the porosity of lefty theory hardly provides our society with more "tolerance, respect, [and] support for the other fellow's self-esteem", as Lester puts it. Fine MB, let's end the PC bullshit. But let's face facts that much of our country hates blacks, Jews, and homosexuals. So a question for all the commentators on this blog who love culture, and aren't about to insult their intellect with leftist PC buzzwords:

What SHOULD the dialog on race relations look like? Are we to simply accept hatred because we can't find a way of talking about the difficulties of living together in a way that is (a) palatable and (b) honest? Even if we don't accept the lefty hyper-diversity model, we should recognize that people of different races, religions and nationalities do live and will continue to live in the same cities. Isn't intolerance a more pressing topic than cultural preservation? How can we - enlightened 2BHs readers that we are - square these two?

Posted by: Brandon M on April 18, 2007 1:35 AM

Just do what Japan does, cut out the bull and consider not recognising the very concept of an 'immigrant'. Cut off the inflow, problem solved.

Posted by: adrian on April 18, 2007 8:04 AM

Brandon,
An accurate diagnosis is part of the solution that is, getting rid of the cant, open some windows and let some common sense flow back in. Prejudice the country may have has towards blacks or homosexuals is no longer codified in law and socially speaking, to give vent to it is to a moral dolt.

But to start the dialogue off I would ask: why don't more black fathers get involved with their kids' school life (or lives in general); the lack of black dads is an acid etching out the black community.

Diversity is a weapon to destroy Western culture. They couldn't put African or Muslim or Mexican or other cultures up against the Western model, which they want to destroy. So they simply say, it is Western Culture vs. Everything -- despite the the fact that Everything (diversity) does not actually exist as one - and some parts of diversity actually want to kill other parts of diversity.

(Diversity for Idiots)
In comic terms, they have created a Superhero, something so nonspecific it is extremely difficult to fight, especially when they (controlling schools) have used their dumb-down ray on our kids and college students.
sN

Posted by: sN on April 18, 2007 1:18 PM

Brandon,

The solution is something called "law."

We think we have this commodity in great supply these days. But we actually don't have jack at all. Next to, say, the UK in 1907, the US is pretty much a law-free zone, like Belarus or something.

The greyish, sticky material we now call "law," the stuff that seems to be all over everything these days, is not law at all. Rather, it's a malignant growth. It thinks it is healthy tissue, but so do all growths. It is in fact a system of bureaucratic decrees, comparable to the Tsarist ukase or the Roman imperial rescript. It has little to do with "law" as a Cato or a Cicero knew it.

(Yes, in fact, since you ask - I do believe that Roman, or as we now call it "Western," civilization has been in decline for about the last 2000 years. Or maybe more like 2500. Believe it or not, this view used to be quite widely held.)

In any case, I'm going to go way out on a limb here and draw your attention to the fact that, basically, in the 19th century, people believed in Law. In the 20th century, they decided that this was old hat, and that they should believe in the People.

The people who believed in Law warned them that the result of this would be enormous massacres and destruction. But they were stuffy and old, so they got pushed aside. And no one reads their books these days.

The result, needless to say, was enormous massacres and destruction. Starting first in the United States, where the dangerous and evil doctrine of Government "by the People" had incubated, while Manchester liberalism had pushed it into remission in England. The military atrocities of the American Civil War were unprecedented in modern history. Little did the Victorians know that it was a small taste of things to come.

The English cancer returned in the nastier form of the Fabian movement which dominates the UK to this day. The Unionist military dictatorship evolved into the Progressive-Nationalist machine which seized power in the US under Wilson and Roosevelt, and fully consolidated its grip in the New Deal. And the "People," of course, still rule us to this day.

One of the most notable achievements of this criminal and murderous philosophy of government was the destruction of Eastern Europe, which had been a vibrant patchwork of multicultural diversity. The doctrine of democracy introduced the same kind of violence into Mitteleuropa that today it brings to Iraq. Ethnic cleansing was inevitable the day the first Sokol was founded.

It's easy to forget these days that "democracy" and "nationalism" are basically the same thing. At least, they so understood in the age of Wilson. How can you have democracy without nationalism? You can't, that's how. Anyone who wants to argue that the Nazis were not, in fact, a perfectly typical manifestation of democratic gang politics, has to discover some nuance of translation between "Demos" and "Volk."

So this is the movement that is asking you to be "multicultural" and "diverse." It's coming to you with blood dripping from its lips, and it's asking for a kiss.

The rule of law is blind to color, class or caste. As John Jay put it, the purpose of law is to defend a million men against one, or one against a million. The day we abandoned this principle was the day we descended into murder and anarchy, and no step back toward safety and freedom can be taken but on its terms.

Posted by: Mencius on April 18, 2007 1:39 PM

Menicus,

When you are talkiing about Law, are you referring to a modeling of society based on natural laws, rather than that of the People, which is based on the perfectiblity of man, and thus really a war against natural law? Does this tie into the scientific and industrial notion of physical progress mistakenly and optimistically appled to human behavior?

Great post as usual.

Posted by: BIOH on April 18, 2007 6:56 PM

BIOH,

Thanks - I am actually not a huge believer in natural law, as I think it is too easy to invent reasons why one thing or another is "natural."

My view is more a belief in simplicity and consistency. Politics appear wherever the resolution of a conflict is unclear. As long as it's clear to everyone who owns what, both in tangible objects and intangible rights, and no one can get ahead by violating this rule, politics will not appear.

This implies that, in an ideal legal system, there is no dispute whose resolution is not unambiguously dictated before the fact. In this ideal world law is static and complete.

Real-world legal systems have never been ideal. They probably can never be ideal. But it used to be thought that the purpose of legal codification was to recognize and clarify common cases of unanticipated uncertainty so as to make the resolution of similar cases more predictable in the future.

This innocent and essentially secretarial function is the tiny acorn that grew into our great modern oak of "legislation," which now of course is simply the process by which the State "does what Ogres can," ie, whatever it wants.

Political conflict is a sine qua non of both democracy and war. Therefore, if the equation of conflict and uncertainty is correct, eliminating uncertainty makes democracy unnecessary and war impossible. Obviously, success in this game is by no means guaranteed, but it does strike me that we could at least try.

Where I see a place for "natural law" is in the rather obvious observation that certain concepts are inherently incompatible with a functioning legal system. It is impossible to define a legal code, for example, in which anyone can just kill anyone else. So in this sense, indeed, murder is illegal under "natural law."

But in ancient Rome a man owned his children, and could kill them if he felt so inclined. Nonetheless the Roman Republic was by no means a lawless society - at least, the idea that ours could condemn theirs on that ground is risible. So I think the extent to which the "natural law" concept is useful is quite limited.

Posted by: Mencius on April 18, 2007 8:20 PM

As in other threads dealing with "diversity" and immigration, and despite a sprinkling of statements along the lines of "I also like living in a diverse neck of the woods myself..." the underlying message seems clear. So, stop tap dancing around and make it explicit.

First, immediately limit the right of immigration to English speakers who have at least a B.A. or equivalent whose ethnicity is 75% or better Caucasian. No gays, no Muslims, no Latinos (Mexicans, Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Peruvians, if we're being honest ... an exception might be made for Cubans who fulfill anti-Castro, anti-communist, propaganda purposes) no refugees from various conflicts elsewhere, no ... well, there will be a loooooong list of those who will be refused the opportunity to come to the land of opportunity.

Next, begin to round up and deport any and all who arrived here illegally. Once we've accomplished that, we can move on to deporting or incarcerating any and all whose ethnicity or sexuality or religion offends "us". ["Us" defined as white, anglo saxon protestant English speakers who are not deemed "race traitors" by a review panel.]

And then, WE can live peaceful, prosperous lives in traditional architecture, enjoying the art of Thomas Kincaid and the cuisine of McDonalds. The Federal government can be limited to running a robust military and border patrol while the free market will take care of everything else.

Posted by: Chris White on April 19, 2007 8:45 AM

Chris -- I appreciate the tone of comic exaggeration, but even so I think you're reading just a wee bit too much into what I say in these postings ...

How do their statements and actions in these cases affect your view of FDR, Eisenhower, and Edward Kennedy? Is it possible that the principles of ethics change over time, and that statements and actions which would have been ethical in 1939 or 1965 have since become unethical? I would find your perspective on this proposition interesting.

I'd also be interested in what you think of the immigration policies of non-Western countries - for example, as one poster mentioned, Japan. Is Japan evil? Surely reasonable people can disagree, but it seems to me that any one person should be able to come up with a yes or no on this one.

Japan, of course, is a long way off. But I wonder what you think of the immigration and naturalization policies of the United States of Mexico. Surely, nativism cannot be unethical on one side of a river and ethical on the other. Or can it? Again, if you have an opinion, I would be curious to hear it.

Posted by: Mencius on April 19, 2007 3:12 PM

Boy, a nice, cleansing, cathartic rant every now and then sure feels good!

Posted by: Chris White on April 19, 2007 3:22 PM

"The odor of unanimity is never a fresh one."

I couldn't' agree more. It's why I stay off the lefty sites, whom I tend to agree with, because what's the point? This here blog is a nice middle ground, tilting a bit towards the right, just enough to fire up my engines, but not too much to make me throw my hands up in despair.

That said, I don't have anything else to offer this topic right now.

Posted by: the patriarch on April 19, 2007 4:02 PM

Hey Chris, relax, your side won. We are the multiculti bog you so admire. At least let a few of us bitch and moan about the ditch your side has so successfully dug. Have no fear, all resistance is futile.

Posted by: ricpic on April 19, 2007 5:20 PM

The only problem with Mr. White's post is that there was not one mention of the preferences of 70% of the population (or 90% in 1965). You would think that these people never existed or had rights either, reading the post. Oh yes, and the only culture they have is MacDonalds and Thomas Kincade. Very perceptive and accurate.

The only problem with the idealism is that the reality doesn't work that way, never has, and never will. I can see that in the world of the Chris Whites, you win the argument when you shout idealistic clattertrap and reduce your opponents to simplistic cartoons without addressing their arguments. I agree with Menicus that you have to compare the promises and ideals to the way things are actually turning out, otherwise you really have no crediblity. Its very interesting to see how many liberals keep going back to those methods of name-calling and cranking out the ideals. I think its a defect in their education, as if they never really learned the discipline of comparison or natural oservation which is so important in the sciences. That's a very big hole to try to cover up, hence the tactics described.

The Civil Rights Movement and the Open Borders Movement were the worst things that ever happened to this country. Polyglots are weak, divisive, filled with intergroup rivalries, violence and other problems. The only thing holding the jalopy (and the Ogre) together is an illusory prosperity, which will soon end. I keep saying this, and I know some of you can't or don't believe it, and you won't until it happens. But it is a dead certainty, and only a question of when, not if. When our economic problems start, the truth of this insanity will be revealed.

Unlike ricpic, I don't think the liberals won. They have the upper hand now, but the pendulum will swing back. All hell will break loose. People look sluggish, fat and happy in the face of it, but skipping a few meals on a regular basis has a way of turning fat and happy into lean and mean.

The Ogre both here and in Europe will fall apart under this duress. The fight is really just beginning. When we go down, Europe will also go down, because we are are one of their big export markets. When we stop consuming so much, they will have to try to sell to Asia. But their high labor costs and socialism will make them uncompetitive, as will their energy dependence. Watch for lots of social upheaval there too.

Menicus, I understand your appeal to the natural law as you describe it, as a way of fighting the Ogre. World domination is always a dream. There are only two worlds with absolute rulers--Heaven and Hell. I leave it up to you to figure out what our world would look like with one king. Luckily the Almighty blessed and cursed the world with greed, vanity, and the will to power. I call it the Cain and Abel game. It is our natural competitiveness which will never allow for a one world government. The Ogre is heading into the buzzsaw of the Middle East and Asia, and will get cut up quite nicely. For too long the east has played second fiddle. No more. It is now their time. Technology not only makes government stronger, it also makes the common man stronger too. I see a decentralization of power as competition arises. And it will not only touch governemental power, but the power of the printing press too.

Cheer up! It is only with hard times that our oppression will end. We won't have any money or rose-colored glasses to entertain the Chris Whites of the world when its done either. All the grandstanding and name calling will look like a shaman's prattle when their false god lets them down. I may or may not believe in natural law, but I do believe in the Natural Order. And for the vast colored minority, it will be that they get exactly what they deserve. Without the wealth transfer, the natural differences will be revealed, intergroup rivalries will rise, and a natural segregation takes care of itself.

So much for Utopia. We all enjoyed the visit. But I'll take my liberty instead, thanks.

Posted by: BIOH on April 19, 2007 7:16 PM

BIOH,

I admire your optimism, but I can't share it.

The factor I think you're missing is technical progress. If you imagine a world in which technology had not advanced since 1945, it's pretty easy to see that the Western "progressive" system would have fallen apart much as the Soviet Union did, and quite quickly at that.

A good sci-fi style thought-experiment, for example, is imagining what would happen in the US of 1907 if you could instantly give it access to the technology of 2007. Then, imagine what would happen in the US of 2007 if it was reduced instantly to the technology of 1907.

Technical advances have masked, and continue to mask, the signs of decay that would otherwise be obvious. Sure, America's industries have rotted, large parts of her cities have been destroyed and abandoned, the dollar has been debased to near worthlessness and is propped up only by the irresponsible monetary policies of Third World despots, the military cannot defeat a few ragtag brigands, unarmed barbarians wander freely across the borders, politics is a circus with no actual power, the country is oppressed by hordes of moralizing bureaucrats, atrocious crimes are ubiquitous and generally unpunished, etc, etc. All of this is absolutely normal. It is the same pattern of events that most declining civilizations have followed.

But we have amazing SUVs, the Internet and enormous flat-screen TVs. This is new. It is genuinely different. It breaks the pattern. It is like Asimov's Mule. History cannot be used to predict it.

Consider Ray Kurzweil's "singularity." I am not 100% a believer in this, but you have to admit that the exponential curve of technology looks pretty irresistible at the moment. Almost as irresistible as the decline of the West.

I'm afraid that when you combine these two curves, the result looks a lot more like "Idiocracy" than a return to sanity and sobriety.

Consider, for example, the shambles of the "conservative" movement. What a disaster! When you trace the line from Barry Goldwater to George W. Bush, you see that everything sound, honorable, and effective tends to disappear, whereas everything meretricious, dishonest and meaningless is amplified to monstrous proportions. Yes, compared to a Kerry or a Gore, Bush is an honest, reasonable and intelligent man. But the bar is low, and only getting lower.

Pat Buchanan's peasants with pitchforks are not about to revolt. At most they will watch O'Reilly on their 61-acre TVs, fume a little, and go back to making payments on their toxic-ARM loans. If Orwell is right and the future belongs to the proles, they're certainly a little slow in waking the heck up.

And what if they do? What if disgruntled soldiers, home from Iraq and a little upset about the slow, vicious stab in the back the liberals are currently administering to them, roll the tanks and install Ann Coulter as President and Larry Auster as VP, with power to rule by decree? Wouldn't we just see all the nasty tropes of the conservative movement, reusing the liberal machine to express their own right-wing version of political correctness? Power corrupts, etc, etc.

So I see no future at all for this line of thinking. In fact, if there is anything that makes me optimistic at all, it's that both liberal and conservative movements are so utterly bereft of plausible leadership and intellectual honor that there has to be some way to get rid of both of them at the same time.

Posted by: Mencius on April 19, 2007 10:29 PM

Well, Chris, you had me going along with you until McDonalds.

Seriously, what's so awful about an immigration policy that seeks to encourage immigration by people with good economic prospects, and furthermore attempts to preserve the preexisting ethnic and racial character of the country? You obviously find diversity entertaining, but past a certain point (a point we've passed), it is the midwife to one disaster after another, ranging from mere distrust between neighbors, through the breakdown in political cooperation, up to, sometimes, civil war. Multi-ethnic polities don't work, more often than not. Frankly, our interest in a functional, orderly, self-governing society trump your selfish aesthetic pleasure in ethnic restaurants and "vibrant" immigrant art (do you mean black velvet and norte├▒o?), and the frisson of self-righteousness you get for denouncing us for caring what kind of country our grand children inhabit. There are plenty of "diverse, vibrant" places in the world. It seems as if half their residents want to move here.

Posted by: cyrus on April 19, 2007 11:00 PM

Menicus,

I meant technology in certain, strategic areas--areas which our overlords have us by the throat. I was specifically thinking about our fiat money system, which is now used to suck us dry by inflationary taxation. I think that will change, along with their other taxations as well.

I was just thinking the other day about all this. I'll give you the example of a simple paycheck. I'm old enough to remember getting delivered my paychecks at work in an envelope every two weeks, taking the check to the bank, and then writing checks against those deposits to pay my bills, or visiting the bank to get a bit of cash out for fun and expenses. Of course, before I got my paycheck, the government that is oppressing us all took out a hefty chunk to fuel its Rube Goldberg-ian machinery.

And that local bank also had other customers. Local businesses used to gather all their cash together in bags and run in a paranoid fashion to the bank to deposit the days' receipts. The local bank was the focal point of a lot of business. That was life as usual about 15 years ago.

Now when I get paid, my check is deposited to any bank I choose, electronically. That bank could be located here or anywhere really. I can now use a either a debit or credit card to pay for everything. I can even do all my finances and pay bills electronically. All of these transactions are security encoded, and generally safe from public viewing. Of course my taxes were taken out too, but that is only because our system still runs on faith in government. So what does it all mean and where am I going with this?

What's to stop me or anyone from using gold (or any other tangible good) now to back my accounts? Why wouldn't I be able to direct a payment to me anywhere I choose, all around the world, wherever had the best terms, to be my bank and back my purchases? All of these transactions could be security encoded. And they could be portable and go with me. It wouldn't even have to be a bank, just a storehouse or company of worth, that could clear debits and credits. Even a corporation could do this. If people like me were to lose faith in the government, technology gives me an option and power I never had before--to become private, to step outside their system of enslavement. The same is true of any business. That's what I meant by competition and technology. I see the world as becoming less centralized, not more. We normal schlubs have no chance to take over the centralized power. But we will have the power to decentralize it by cutting off the tumor's blood supply. All it takes now is a loss of faith. The world is changing, you'll see. When the governments of the world have to compete for the priveledge of issuing currency and banking, things change. I'll be hard to tax if you can't see me, if my bank is in an unfreindly or isolated place now, won't it?

And if you think about it, you can start to see a way out that many doom and gloomers (like I was) never thought of before. The standard line was that digital money would be the end, the mark of the Beast, a one world government with one currency. Quite the contrary! It will free us all.

Our overlords are vulnerable. We do all the work, they do nothing. We are the value. They cannot attack us if they can't afford to do so. They cannot redistribute our income if they can't see it. And they cannot control the money supply or buy anyone off if no one chooses to use their currency. That is the base of their power. And believe me, technology will be created to decentralize the internet, its components, and other electronic communications too. In other words, it will make our lives better.

Think about it.

Posted by: BIOH on April 20, 2007 1:45 AM

Chris, I gave an example of having to sit at work and listen to college educated upper-middle class minorities make a claim upon my rights as though they still have the marks on their legs from the shackles I had them wearing 10 minutes ago. And I know for a fact that at least one of them had eaten at McDonald's that day.

I would like to know what the response of a man is suppose to be when groups backed by corporate muscle make demands on my rights? Surrender?

Now, I will probably survive the indignity as long as the junior apocalypse that some of us predict does not come to fruition. But I am not sure if others will survive.

I know of a single mother living in a Midwest state whose two kids are now some of a handful of white kids still attending this school. The boy and girl are constantly threatened with violence by the children of illegal aliens who state with enthusiasm that they hate white people. The young boy has finally told his mother that he no longer can go to school. Unfortunately, the school is not Rutgers, so he'll have to tough it out on his own.

Does this citizen's plight mean anything to you?

Do you think the hatred these Mexicans have toward whites is a passing phase? It will all be better when 48 percent of them drop out of school to take their place in the coporate world? I know you and yours have already put this young boy's education in the pot of the diversity gamble -- how much more are you willing to put in there? I think I'd feel a bit better to see your kids' future tossed in there.
sN

Posted by: sN on April 20, 2007 2:03 AM

Michael ľ

From the responses that followed what I thought of as satiric exaggeration, perhaps I need to reconsider. I guess it takes suggesting immigrants as a good protein source (as Swift once offered as the solution to England's "Irish problem") to pass beyond the very real fear, animosity and xenophobia on display among certain posters here.

The last time I checked the true natives of North America have been slaughtered, assimilated or confined to reservations and marginalized by all of us descendants of immigrants. Up here, near the Canadian border, it's historically been the French Canadians who've threatened the Anglophone majority with their Papist ways and willingness to take dangerous underpaid jobs in the woods and factories. They were, however, at least a step above the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy who found it difficult to get hired for even those jobs. Typically it takes three generations for the language spoken at home and lingering allegiance to the "old country" to fade into the background and be replaced by a lingering nostalgic affinity for one's ancestral heritage. That said, first and second-generation immigrants often demonstrate a greater patriotism and love of the USA than those who trace their ancestors' arrival here to the nineteenth century or before.

As for diversity, isn't it always going to be an issue with twin poles? On one side is globalization ... at its most idealized "one planet, one people" ... or less idealized "one planet, one market for [insert brand name here]. On the other is the cultural purity of Bhutan or the Amish. Herein lies the heart of the conundrum; real diversity favors retention of differences over the Mencius milk (whisky) shake, yet those differences seem to scare the bejeezus out of so many.

Despite living in (near actually) a small city, as it is a refugee relocation center, there is a local elementary school with something like 75 languages represented among the students. One good thing about the town's relative small size is that, while a couple of buildings here and there may become predominantly Somali or Thai or Ukrainian, we don't have a Chinatown or Little Tokyo, but rather have a diverse city. And frankly, the only group that has regularly seemed threatening to me is the under-educated, under-employed, locally grown nativists who seem to think that they are owed a job (that they will not perform) for a great salary (that they'll spend on Allen's Coffee Brandy and ATVs) and a cheap place to live (where they can throw old machinery out the window into the yard to use for target practice) and the fact that they don't have these things must be the fault of some poor kid who arrived here after a couple of years in a refugee camp because his tribe was being wiped out by some racist regime half a world away.

For the record, I favor a far more open and expansive GUEST WORKER program tied to immigration reforms that both allow higher numbers to LEGALLY become citizens, while affording tighter control of both groups.

Posted by: Chris White on April 20, 2007 10:25 AM

Yeah, all the natives are slackers. Obviously Mr. White hasn't seen the Mexican ghettoes in every large city, nor has he noticed the large increases in crime, welfare costs, and race solidarity amongst the mexicans, asian indians, and chinese.

Maybe you need a new derogatory term for those who don't agree with your ideas--liberal-o-phobia. Then you can cast someone who diiffers with your preferences as having a mental illness. More name-calling.

Again, what concern have you shown in any of your arguments for white americans? Zero. So why should we take you seriously?

All you ever learned to do is badmouth your own people so you can try to look morally superior. I think its pathetic, but you must have friends that buy into that line of logic, while retreating like you to the all-white areas or rural countryside. Go live with your buddies in the black and mexican ghettoes. You'll find that they have the same attitude about you as we do about them. Its a recipe for disaster. You can't even say that there is no violence, because its all over the big cities.

If you want to live in a refugee camp or a third world country, why not just move there? I know why--its because you feel a lot safer and have lots more economic prospects in a a white country than you would there. I wonder why that is? I wonder why it is that if white America is so racist, all the coloreds want to move here? Probably so they can suck off the white man and his welfare state (soon to be history).

Anyway, its people who are advocating policies to destroy themselves and their own country that have a mental illness, not the other way around.

The way to deal with the Mr. Whites of the world is simply to ignore and laugh at their silly idealistic grandstanding every time you read it. Hahaha, why are we supposed to solve a refugee crisis halfway around the world? LOL, most othe indians died from infectious diseases, and they killed each other in droves! They owned slaves and treated women like dirt! They had a whole continent and made nothing of it but a stone-age tribal society fraught with disease, war, and subsistence living. We just declare a War on Their Poverty, that's all! And we made this land into the greatest country the world has ever seen! LOL, what a joke!

Oh boy, that's funny, a guest worker! How will we round them up and make them leave! They don't care about our laws now! Why do we need more non-white citizens when all they do is band together and attack native white citizens? I thought attacking native citizens was bad? The whole thing is just a bundle of ridiculous inconsistencies and moralistc blather--a satire, if you will, of the most risible order.

When you ignore reality, you make your ideas an easy target for ridicule. All of it rests on the idea that it is your obligation as a white to help out non-white others, and to transfer your property to them (including citizenship) in order to make their lives better--and this from the irreligious! No consideration at all for how it will work or how it affects you! Amazing stuff. But what if we don't buy into that premise? Then the whole argument falls apart, that's what.

So we're just opting out, that's all, Mr. White. If we don't accept your premise, you have no argument. And since we are under no obligation to do these things for others, demanding that we do so and calling us sinners for not wanting to makes you seem a bit dictatorial, doesn't it? That's not very nice, not very moral. I guess we're just fallen people, but quite comfortable being so, which irritates you to no end.

Posted by: BIOH on April 20, 2007 12:30 PM

Love y'all, love the passion, controversies are fun, appreciate and enjoy everyone's contributions, etc. But the moment may be right for me to intrude with a small reminder to keep it civil, assume the best about each other (reasonable people can disagree, etc), etc ...

Words, of course, have no intrinsic meaning. Still, I would think a reasonable definition of a "true native" of some geographical entity, such as North America, might be someone who was born there.

But there's this other concept that keeps creeping in. If what you mean by "true native of North America" is what I think you mean, how would you define, say, a "true native of Germany"?

Satiric exaggeration, you see, is a very different thing depending on whether it's expressed for or against the party in power. The satiric voice of power is well-known. Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, all were chock-full of satire, all constantly mocked the ridiculous figures that were their enemies of the day.

I'd like to think I can appreciate a good Jew joke as much as anyone. But the thing about the satire of power is that it's never actually funny. It has this mocking, hateful tone that simulates humor, it can be even be experienced as humor by people who lack that natural faculty, but it fails because it's predictable. We always know what the Ogre wants, because what he wants is what he does, and he does it constantly. So he cannot outwit us, even for the second that would make us laugh.

Of course, you don't think your side is the Ogre. Oh, no! You are David. They are Goliath. And in other news, Prince Charles is a dissident.

This is the story I was raised on. Hordes of ignorant, racist, God-crazed peasants, allied with giant, corrupt multinational corporations, are poised to crush the tiny sparks of intellectual life that have sprung up, against all odds, in the beleaguered retreats of life, love and thought that are the impoverished cities of Cambridge and Berkeley. Against all odds, a few daring freethinkers, socially conscious environmentalists, and responsible civil servants, defend the arts and sciences and other faint, flickering flames of human progress, and speak out for the rights of the downtrodden, who at any minute could be crushed under the iron heel of the Corporate Beast, or lynched in droves by the zombie minions of Karl Rove.

There's some "fear, animosity and xenophobia" for you. It is just not the official kind, with which you are so familiar.

In historical terms, it is the exact equivalent of the Wilhelmine paranoia of "encirclement." Or the Unionist paranoia that the "Slave Power" was about to annex New England and fill it with Negro-operated factories. Or the Confederate paranoia that fanatical Yankee Puritans were organizing slave revolts to turn everything south of Pennsylvania into Haiti 2.0.

In other words, it is nonsense on stilts. It has no relationship to reality. But it does not make any factual predictions which are obviously refutable. Of course the neighbors of Germany were arming themselves against her - she was behaving in a terrifying and unstable way. Of course the slave-masters of the South had no objection to Dred Scott - why would they? Of course the religious fanatics of the North supported John Brown - they agreed with him.

What's so sad, although not at all surprising, is that - with your "true natives of North America" mentality, you reveal yourself as willing to revel in the most appalling tropes of identity politics, simply because they give you a stick to crush the "under-educated, under-employed, locally grown nativists" who are your true enemies.

If BIOH's faction ever gets into power, a possibility I find unlikely but certainly not impossible, this stick will be used against you. The line between a "native" and a "nativist" is awful thin. If I were you, I'd think pretty hard about how you can get that ring off of your finger and into the volcano. Because rings - as BIOH points out - do tend to change hands.

Posted by: Mencius on April 20, 2007 2:12 PM

BIOH,

Given that most of my miniscule nest egg is in the tender care of James Turk, you're preaching to the converted.

But I think you may underestimate how quickly and easily the iron heel of the Treasury can crush this stuff. It will be a very long and slow battle, and lots of things can happen in the meantime.

If you (or anyone else) is interested, you might want to send an email to gold-silver-crypto-digest-subscribe at rayservers dot com. Don't spread the link around too much, it attracts yahoos...

Posted by: Mencius on April 20, 2007 2:22 PM

Chris' example of his suburb is very similar to the one I live in, and of most of the surrounding suburbs as well. EXTREMELY diverse, more so than in most cities because the relative affluence of us suburbanites is a sort of equalizer. We don't separate into ethnically distinct neighborhoods. Instead, since we all are in pretty much the same income bracket and want basically the same things (nice house, sizable backyard, good schools, etc.), we live next to each other. The only ones griping about this situation are the people who have been here for years, and yeah, they're white and mostly working class. However, they view recent white transplants like me only slightly better than they do tranplants of other ethnic origins. The bottom of the ladder? The Mexicans who own the Mexican food joints and landscaping companies. Duh.

There is little to no crime here, but in the cities, it's a different story, of course. It's interesting how much a little money and some space can change things.

Posted by: the patriarch on April 20, 2007 3:12 PM

BIOH, another LOL for your collection:
LOL, look how "certain posters" deliberately trying to introduce class struggle into ethnic/immigration issue. Reminds me (damn Soviet education), how Marx saw the resolution of the "Jewish question" in international solidarity of workers.

Even funnier, when you think that the policies that the Left favors (namely, guaranteed irregardless to market unions' wages, benefits, etc) is the exact reason of "locally grown nativists who seem to think that they are owed a job (...) for a great salary (...) and a cheap place to live".

Mencius, I was away for a week, I return, and the theings are still as I left them? *tapping my show impatiently* How long, exactly, it takes to start a blog?

Posted by: Tatyana on April 20, 2007 4:18 PM

What a fascinating discussion!

If Mencius is right, and the "under-educated, under-employed, locally grown nativists" are indeed the true enemies of the Chris Whites, my question is -- why?

Posted by: PA on April 20, 2007 4:25 PM

Pardon the spelling typos above. I have 3 windows open and write simultaneously in all.

Posted by: Tatyana on April 20, 2007 5:02 PM

Patriarch,

What is the advantage of having a "diverse" community, rather than a mostly homogeneous one?

Robert Putnam of "Bowling Alone" fame has done studies of "diverse" communities and found that people in them exhibit a lack of social trust and community. So how is it that polyglots are better?

One example of this polyglot is an engineering office of a corporation that I worked at a few years ago. The company just won a big job, and we were invited out to a bar for a little celebration. Being new to the company, it was interesting how things divvied up in the bar--the white guys pretty much hung out together, with some interaction with the white women, the blacks pretty mcuh hung out together (all human resource people, btw), the asians all hung out together, and the asian indians didn't even show up.

I was also struck at how quiet the office was all the time. Not much chatter at all. One time, the indian co-worker I sat next to asked me why it was so quiet all the time. I could have told her, but I would have had to tell her the truth--the office was too "diverse" for people to really feel comfortable together. And that was true of everybody. I would contrast this in my mind with the work environment just 10 or so years ago where it was mostly white guys. We used to have a lot more fun at the office because we could pretty much say what we wanted, swear words and all, and nobody would say a word. Also, I got tired of correcting these foreigners' work constantly. It was hard for me to talk to the black human resource personnel too, knowing their job was to see that as few people who looked like me as possible were hired.

It would be nice to think that people are interchangeable, that assimilation is easy or even preferred, but my experience is that it isn't. Why the voices of people like me are shouted down as racist I don't find consistent with true debate. Why shouldn't negative opinions be discussed? Because they might prevail?

Also, one last thought on the nativist question. I would have a lot more respect for the "let the aboriginals have their homelands back" argument if it were consistent. If that's true of America, then lets send all the blacks back to Africa too. The hispanics have to leave and go back to Mexico. And I'll go back to Europe. But the funny thing is that we can't claim any country in Europe as a white homeland either. The same people who are forcing non-white immigration on us here won't let us alone there either! So where's the consistency in that? All it is is anti-white racism disguised as moral improvement, to my detriment. Is it any wonder I'm sick of it?

Posted by: BIOH on April 20, 2007 5:44 PM

PS,

I probably stepped over the line in my previous post to Mr. White. I apologize for any offense. I tend to be pretty crusty, and when people say personal stuff about me I don't care much, and I forget that everyone is a different. Thanks for the reminder MB.

Posted by: BIOH on April 20, 2007 5:51 PM

What is the advantage of having a "diverse" community, rather than a mostly homogeneous one?

The food! Seriously.

I'm not here to say diversity is better. I personally don't care either way. I like meeting and interacting with a variety of people, but then I also like the comfort of being amongst people of my own background. My point is that diversity, even if we do clamp down on our borders, is inevitable, so we may as well make it pleasant. The suburbs seem to handle diversity much better than the cities, where ethnicities tend to balkanize. And my explanation of this is the relatively comfortable (and perhaps even more important, homogeneous) financial situation suburbanites of all stripes find themselves in. That and the physical space available.

As for your example of a diverse and quiet office, I can only offer my own example. I am constantly IM-ing the Indian programmer on the 3rd floor, mostly picking his brain about C# and .NET, but also joking around. This morning we had our usual lively Friday coffee hour, where us poor downtrodden whites are in the minority in the department I work in.

Again, anecdotal evidence, but true. I work in Sacramento, which is sort of a suburban city. It also was cited by Newsweek as probably the most diverse place in the country. I moved here from the SF Bay Area, an increasingly balkanized and unaffordable place to live. I came here for the low housing costs, and I was surprised by the variety of people here. The most unpleasant ones are the lower-income whites, BY FAR. They don't like me or anybody else who isn't one of them. Too bad for them. Next in line are lower-income black men and women. Pains in the ass. Everyone else is perfectly nice. And I should say, this doesn't hold in the workplace, where pretty much everyone is pleasant to be around; black, white, whatever. Again, I attribute this to economics. My co-workers and I are lucky enough to be making a decent living, hence we're pretty happy with each other.

Posted by: the patriarch on April 20, 2007 7:18 PM

Patriarch,

Why would anybody be an asshole in the workplace? It could cost you your job. FWIW, I get along with everybody on the job. It makes things smoother. But that doesn't mean I like everybody, and I'm not talking about race either. What I do off the job is a different matter. I used to be more amiable about it, but not so much anymore.

Its interesting to note that SF is becoming balkanized. As you say, your city is quite diverse. But when large numbers of any ethnicity begin to form, they seek out each other and become balkanized. Let me guess that the native white Sacramento residents are one such group? There is only more balkanization in our future.

I disagree that this is or was inevitable. It is planned by our elites to make us weak and unable to dethrone them. No other race except whites has a history of such personal freedom and revolution. Hence the need to destroy us. Japan has an aging and declining population and they aren't doing this. I guess they figure they have a distinct culture to preserve that's tied to their race. They aren't alone in thinking this way either.

I don't really have much more to say, except I don't understand why people think that there can be no morally acceptable all white countries, or even places here in America. I don't see any different race committing this kind of national suicide, but they never get demonized. I'd just like to have a choice, that's all. I don't hate anybody really, I just am tired of it all. Like being on vacation in a foreign country, at some point I just want to pack up and go back home. I just want to be left alone and be around people like myself. What's so wrong about that?

Posted by: BIOH on April 20, 2007 9:43 PM

BIOH
Hear! Hear!

Posted by: cyrus on April 20, 2007 10:53 PM

Patriarch,

Those white people you don't get along with in Sacramento used, as you probably know, to be called "Okies." Somehow, unlike all other anti-white linguistic tropes, this word has actually become politically incorrect and I would never say it in public, any more than I would use the n-word. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just because there was this brief moment in the 1930s when a large grouping of actual white people was so downtrodden that Hollywood could actually cry its crocodile tears on their behalf, so we all got to watch "The Grapes of Wrath" in 11th-grade history and we still feel guilty about it, even though none of your present-day Okies is actually named "Rosasharn" or works like a Mexican in the lettuce fields. Instead they are all fat and drive minivans, and you see them in the stands at Kings games with their stringy blond hair and obese spawn. But still, the guilt remains.

When I was in high school in Maryland we had pretty much the same ethnic group - we called them "grits." My girlfriend, who grew up in Ohio, notes that the same term was common there. And obviously the word "redneck" is also well-known. I have never lived in anywhere this was actually a current living part of the English language, but for sheer florid creativity you can't beat "peckerwood."

PA - why do these people not get along with the Chris Whites? Why do different ethnic groups anywhere hate each other? What's the beef between the Hutus and the Tutsis? What about the Prods and the Paddies?

I think the official answer - the one Chris White would probably give (of course he or she may disagree) - is dead on. It is just hatred, mistrust and misunderstanding. If you could eliminate all these things, we could all live together in harmony.

And if pigs had wings, bacon would fly. It's never that the goals of social engineering are undesirable. It's that the problem is a lot harder than it looks, and often the methods chosen are not only ineffective but actually counterproductive. Imagine a time when people seriously believed that "Black Pride" would bring America closer to racial healing. Incredible! But it happened.

I personally was raised with more or less the same kinds of beliefs that Chris White has expressed. I would love to think my tolerance of Agro-Americans (with whom I actually get along quite well) is the result of superior enlightenment. But I think it's just that I had a strange upbringing which involved a lot of not living in the US, so my indoctrination into the culture war was patchy and didn't take properly. I suspect the way I relate to "grits" is very similar to the way Chris probably relates to blacks. It's how any civilized person relates to members of a foreign culture with which his or her own culture is not at war.

Of course, the fact that we have a political system in which any group of any kind will, unless it constantly howls for special privileges to match everyone else's special privileges, effectively get the shaft, doesn't help.

Tatyana, your patience will be rewarded. Complex negotiations are in process - things of which you know nothing. As long as the package is delivered, the code is valid and the device are intact and as described, the wheels will begin to rotate. Perhaps on Monday there will be a sign. Watch for the wild duck!

Posted by: Mencius on April 20, 2007 11:30 PM

Mencius - my "why?" in response to Chris Whites' disdain of lower class whites was an expression of my desire to understand the phenomenon of liberal whites's contempt of their poorer cousins.

Is it just the "white status game" in play, or somethng deeper? I imagine that most liberals would prefer, as a lesser of two evils, that their daughters be courted by a lower class white boy than a non-white one -- so perhaps this is where the liberal white detente with foreign tribes ends.

I don't really have much more to say, except I don't understand why people think that there can be no morally acceptable all white countries, or even places here in America.

I don't think anyone here is saying that, but how would you enforce such an enclave? And that's what you would have to do; enforce it. Legally, physically keep certain people out. America has never been "all white." Merely socially and economically sratified. What has happened in the last 50 years is that more people have obtained access to the channels that allow them some level of financial comfort, which has allowed them to live on a par with many whites.

I dont believe your scenario of balkanization is what bothers you. I believe it is the ever more fliud ways in which different cultures mix in this country. I find that exciting. And I don't see it as a threat to my own Irish/Portuguese heritage (racial mixing!) nor my American identity.

Posted by: the patriarch on April 21, 2007 3:51 PM

PA,

I think most liberals would actually be overjoyed to see their daughters dating a Barack Obama. P. Diddy or 50 Cent - not so much.

In my opinion, the US upper class (I am fond of the word "professional," so beloved of dating sites) is extremely classist and status-conscious. Their egalitarianism is thoroughly bogus. But their nonracism and antiracism is quite genuine.

Thus affirmative action - the uberclass is always looking for any children of the underclass that can plausibly be recruited and trained as "professionals." This cements the alliance between the two classes, and directs attention away from its unnatural and essentially military nature.

(Of course, nobody actually thinks of it this way. The pattern exists because it works, that's all.)

As for the white-on-white red-state/blue-state hatred, how much explanation does it really need? I suppose most Muslims find the Protestant-Catholic conflict fairly inexplicable, as we do for Shia vs. Sunni. Similarity is in some ways a more effective generator of conflict than difference.

I think there is a lot of both fear and contempt in the "white status game." Almost all the West's levers of power are controlled by blue-state aristos, but they are outnumbered (the last US President to win the white vote: Lyndon Johnson). In a political system that is still nominally democratic, the fear of Pat Buchanan's peasant uprising cannot be utterly dismissed.

Also, if we define the youth-culture wing of the blue-state movement as "alternative" (in my high school, it was "punks" against the "grits"), we can see that for a very large number of aristos, hatred of the red-state mob has deep personal roots.

San Francisco, for example, is full of alterna-hipsters who grew up in places where they were deeply outnumbered and often physically assaulted. These people are generally your most virulent Bush-haters, and who can really blame them?

Many of these people are also a little insecure about whether their educational or professional achievement really entitles them to upper-class status. This generates a sort of aspirational contempt that is a very normal phenomenon.

This contempt can be seen very clearly, for example, in the otherwise inexplicable loathing directed at Starbucks, which is actually a vehicle for selling blue-state culture to the red-state masses. I suspect that in Wichita the cool people actually do go to Starbucks, but here in SF it is a major faux pas. Instead, the typical SF Starbucks customer is a hard-working, family-oriented immigrant, a Daly City type, someone with whom no hipster would ever associate.

Posted by: Mencius on April 21, 2007 4:14 PM

PA ľ

Like when Bill Cosby speaks out about the way his fellow blacks, men in particular, need to get their act together and do right by their children and community, championing education and responsibilty, my "contempt" comes from a visceral understanding that these are MY people, behaving badly. It pains me when I see those who share the heritage of which I am so proud (working class Mainers who trace their lineage back to the British Isles) acting like fools, thugs, bigots, welfare cheats, etc.

As a father of a marriageable daughter, I take each young man as an individual. I've seen plausible suitors from a diversity (that word again) of backgrounds. And my least favorite ones have been white boy slackers, proud of their own ignorance and filled with a sense of entitlement.

As an aside, while in high school the Daughter Unit began to realize we were economically less well off than many of her schoolmates who were overtly "po' white trash." We had discussions about how much difference attitudes and priorities can make in how we see ourselves and how others see us.

Over the years, from elementary school to geezer status, I've known and been close to a pretty broad array of folks; immigrants (Scotland, Iran, Germany, Russia ...); first generation Americans; Americans who could be in the DAR; Catholics, Jews (observant and non-observant), Protestants, Anglicans and secular humanists. I believe my life would be greatly diminished if I'd limited my close ties to those who tightly share my personal heritage.

My choice to not be anonymous on this blog probably means when the excrement hits the oscillating device I'll be among those rounded up and sent to a re-education camp ... if they don't just shoot me and be done with it. I can live with that.

Posted by: Chris White on April 21, 2007 4:54 PM

Some equations for the non-numbery:

Balkanization=race politics=social unrest.

Affirmative action=race political bribe=delay of social unrest.

Paying people not to work/government jobs (welfare state)=monetary inflation

No money for political bribes=end of affirmative action=social unrest, delayed for 40 years, starts in earnest.

I have come to the understanding through dialogues such as this that socialists generally have no concept of economics. Without the welfare state, the illusion of a multi-cultural state and racial harmony will end, because some races/groups will find themselves always on the bottom, and rather than blame themselves, will blame racism and attack the race(s)/group(s) that are doing/are better. History in a nutshell.

You're afraid of race-mixing! I thought we covered this before--am I afraid, or do I not like it? Two different things.

Our country has never been uniracial! I never said that, but it was segregated, and it was better, in my opinion. Other countries around the world have always been white. Why are they being forced to change against their will?

The anti-white hatred I've come to expect from socialists. They are the only group in the history of the world to hate themselves and advocate policies and attitudes which put them at a disadvantage and destroy their countries and cultures.

If you like other cultures, there's nothing stopping you from going to the Post office and getting a passport. Most people around the world don't look for interpersonal conflict and are "nice". But given a large enough population, will form a community and seek to exclude others from that group so that the advantages of group membership is not diluted. The most basic expression of this is the family. Ties can be religious, racial, political, etc. Some ties are stronger than others. This is the Natural Order. It does not change. It can't be legislated away, it can't be wished or propagandized away. Race and culture as entertainment are one thing, and race and culture as identity are another. Some may choose to disregard their own culture and race in order to make friends, But the vast majority will not. That does not make them immoral, it makes them normal.

Socialists are people who look at history and find it full of conflict and inequality. Every social system devised has never reached perfection and allieviated these problems. So they have come up with a novel solution. Instead of making any claim of superiority of one system to another, they will end conflict by equating all systems and cultures, regardless of merit, thus ending conflict. They will solve inequality by transferring wealth from the rich to the poor, regardless of merit, in order to end inequality. They will smash down the dominant gruop, and try to uplift the lower group, regardless of merit.

There are only two sins to the socialist then--intolerance and reward by merit. In all cases, they will try to undermine these to reach their Utopia. So if you understand this, you can completely understand and predict their point of view.

Take any issue--they will always side with the person or group that is doing worse. They will raise them up and smash down the one doing better. Affirmative action--they side with the blacks, for example, regardless of merit. Even if it violates the white person's rights, that's okay, because "social justice" is more important than an individual white's rights. Or take capital punishment, overwhelmingly a question for black prisoners. They will side with the individual's rights over "social justice". Lots of love for Tookie, not so much for any white guy. You see, the system is bad because its not perfect. Its the same for any issue. Even in the arts, the inferior must be raised to the level of the better, to dispense of conflict. The dominant forms must be torn down, and the suppressed forms must be raised up, regardless of merit.

That is why evil flourishes under socialism. Because one of the main concerns of the systems they discarded was the limiting of evil and the promotion of the good. Since socialists see tolerance as a higher virtue than almost any other, they rationalize evil for the promotion of tolerance.

All of the anti-white hatred is aimed at smashing down the dominant group. None of the rhetoric regarding whites is positive, and all of the rhetoric regarding any minority group is positive. Negatives are not important. The desires of whites are the desires of oppressors and have to be done away with for the purposes of "social justice".

james Joyce had an interesting and revealing quote, being a good socialist. He said "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake". But that's not true--history is not a nightmare, its a reality. He should have said "History is a reality from which I am trying to awake by means of nightmare". That nightmare is totalitarainism, whose all-encompassing reach and oppression must be marshalled for the sake of overturning the Natural Order. To allow people to be free is to give in to the Natural Order. That will not do. It takes great effort on the part of a people to overthrow this totalitariansim ushered in by the enemies of the Natural Order, the socialists. Great pain must be caused to get the people to risk their lives to overthrow it. The overthrow is Revolution. What you socialists are giving us is a totalitarian regime that will only be able to suppress animosities until it is overthrown, and then a civil war. Look at Yugoslavia.

I'd really like to thank you for destroying my country and eradicating my freedoms, and sending us headlong into momentous problems, all so that you can be entertained and feel morally superior. I'm sure all the troubles and violence that exist now and will come later is worth it to you because you love everybody so much. I guess we'll see how it all shakes out, but don't be surprised if your Utopia fails here too. It has to. There is no to denying the Natural Order for too long.

I misspoke. This will be my last post on the topic.

Posted by: BIOH on April 21, 2007 10:55 PM

Chris,

Unfortunately the phrase "my people" has two meanings in English. I'm afraid your ambiguity is a little more Empsonian than you may intend.

If this thread hasn't convinced you that, in fact, there is another culture in the US which sees the world very differently from you and isn't simply suffering from some kind of rural mental retardation, I'm not sure what will.

BTW, "class" (caste, really) in the US is not about your tax bracket. It is about status, prestige, and power. I have fond memories of one of my fellow grad students at Berkeley who once ventured the thought that he was "poor" - just because his stipend was only $15K a year.

Nor does caste in the US depend on who your parents were. It mainly depends on where you went to college. Somehow, in your case, I suspect that wasn't DeVry Institute of Transmission Repair.

Of course, we are all human. I have known a Turk or two in my time. My perspective on the world is very different from that of many I have met. But I prefer to respect their perspectives and experiences, rather than regarding their culture as an inferior, ignorant version of mine.

Regardless of whether they share my skin color, language, or passport. Issues which seem to concern you quite a bit.

I'm not sure what BIOH will do if he winds up in charge. I wouldn't put a little rough treatment past him. But if it's me who sticks out the finger and alone goes bang, you'll just have to work for a living. I assume you can live with that, too. Hopefully you have some skills that others will exchange the products of their labor for. If not, it's never too late to learn how to fix a tranny...

Posted by: Mencius on April 22, 2007 12:18 AM

Mencius -

"If this thread hasn't convinced you that, in fact, there is another culture in the US which sees the world very differently from you and isn't simply suffering from some kind of rural mental retardation, I'm not sure what will."

I am well aware of that other culture, unfortunately it is one that seems to believe their ethnicity and/or ancestry entitles them. I have more sympathy for those who hold this view due to "rural mental retardation" than those who follow trails of philosophic & economic bread crumbs around in a circle to "prove" the merits of racism and xenophobia. Sometimes, when I encounter those who hold these views I like to remind them 'that, in fact, there is another culture in the US which sees...'

"class" (caste, really) in the US is not about your tax bracket. It is about status, prestige, and power. Nor does caste in the US depend on who your parents were. It mainly depends on where you went to college.

Interesting idea, but one that doesn't fit my observations. Status, prestige, and power are seemingly purchasable items, as is student status at a prestigious college. (e.g. GWB at Yale) While one can arrive there on one's own, if your parents have wealth enough to share with you it certainly gives you an advantage in acquiring SP&P and thus elevating your caste postion.

For the record, mostly financial reasons limited my post-high school education to sporadic clusters of classes taken at three colleges of only modest reputation, including a state school. Part of me always pined for a lower IQ combined with mechanical aptitude, then I could make a good living in a trade and be content to watch American Idol without worrying about much beyond whether the fridge was full.

"Regardless of whether they share my skin color, language, or passport. Issues which seem to concern you quite a bit."

The issue of this thread is diversity and whether or not immigration enhances or threatens the USA, so skin color, language, and passport are the topics under discussion. In my day-to-day life I don't give much thought to them at all. I have regularly been considered slow on the uptake for not being more quickly conscious of someone being Jewish or gay or some other "Other" that is not immediately obvious. This happens precisely because those labels generally have no bearing on whatever business or social interaction I'm engaged in with them. My connections with people rarely depend on shared ethnicity but on shared interests.

"... you'll just have to work for a living. I assume you can live with that, too."

I've always worked for a living and will probably need to do so until the day I die.

Posted by: Chris White on April 22, 2007 8:22 AM

Mencius, had you meant to say Agro-Americans or is it just typo? Look like a nice handle for those Okies of old.

And, seriously, let me join Tatyana in wishing for regular blogging of your own. You sure have what to say and can do it in style.

Don't forget to share your thoughts on Singularity when you get going...

Posted by: ai_sur on April 22, 2007 9:39 AM

Chris,

Perhaps our experiences date to different generations.

But certainly today, every prestigious school in North America will jump all over itself to lend any successful applicant the money he or she needs to attend.

And admissions is overwhelmingly merit-based, except for affirmative action for legacies and minorities. The latter are lionized on campus, whereas the former (quite rightly) are shunned, and guard their shameful secret tightly.

(This is especially true at my alma mater, Brown, which is now quite hip but in the lifetime of my parents was the doormat of the Ivy League. I actually may have been a legacy at Brown, but I don't think I counted, because my father was a grad student and my mother dropped out to marry him.)

GWB was a legacy, but there are also a few students - in the single digits, I'm pretty sure - who really do get in because they're ultra-rich. One semester I wound up by some coincidence sharing a room with none other than Bill Getty. I'm afraid we did not stay in touch, but at least back then Bill much preferred to be known as a player of heavy-metal guitar and a prodigious drinker of Everclear, than as the grandson of J. Paul. (And I will say nothing of his repulsive and thoroughly illegal ferret, "Earwig.")

Anyway. I am digressing. My point is that the top rank of social status in the US today is conferred by, and only by, intellectual distinction and achievement, preferably involving some association with the arts, sciences, or public policy. Wealth confers no rank, and wealth in the absence of personal achievement is downright embarrassing.

No one, for example, gains any status at all by being the son of a successful Hyundai dealer. Some people might think they have status as the result of driving a fancy car or something, but that's actually because they have no status at all (in the broader sense of society, not necessarily in their own subculture). No quantity of phat gold chainz is enough to make an underprivileged pharmaceutical merchant welcome at the White House, or to admit him to Harvard at that (although I suppose it's always worth a try).

I made the comment about "working for a living" because I seemed to recall a conversation in which you mentioned employment at a regional theater.

If my memory is accurate, imagine a world in which not only are NEA grants a distant memory, but theater has lost its academic link to status and power, is as disreputable as it was in Shakespeare's day or as, say, heavy metal is today, and therefore has to rely for its box on audiences who it genuinely amuses, without the current air of churchly veneration.

(The last play I ever sat through, after which a lifelong vow was taken, was Mamet's appalling and unendurable translation of Faust - the fact that this premiered in San Francisco should have been a warning. Mamet actually sat right in front of us that night, and my girlfriend, who has the misfortune of an MFA in playwriting, still wishes she had leaned over and Maced him, Hunter S. Thompson style, as a Rimbaudian publicity stunt. It probably wouldn't have worked, though. In any case, the mostly gray-headed audience was rapt, as usual, as if they'd seen the first production of Hamlet. Just another night of Official Art. You haven't seen The Lives of Others yet, have you? It's shocking how, um, familiar, the East German theater scene seems...)

But if I remember incorrectly, of course, I'll have to ask you to accept my apologies.

ai_sur, yes, though the term is usually reserved for graduates of Texas A&M...

Posted by: Mencius on April 22, 2007 4:14 PM

And note that - while, like BIOH, I think I've said enough on this subject - no one in the US is asking for special privileges on account of being white.

Of course white people, of the traditionalist American persuasion, are not saints. In the past their skin color gave them special privileges. And if you offered them such privileges again, I'm sure they would be accepted. Similarly, if you offered the Hohenzollerns the crown of Prussia back, I'm sure they'd take you up on it. But that's no reason to worry about the second coming of Kaiser Bill.

Instead, these days, lower-caste white people are discriminated against, in favor of a rapidly-expanding class of "minorities" who will soon in fact become the majority. And who are being used quite transparently as a janissary caste by the ruling blue-state elite.

This is a naked power play. And whether their skin is white, black, green or purple, nobody appreciates this kind of treatment. The fact that they submit to it is a consequence of their present powerlessness. If that changes, a lot of things will change with it.

I have no desire at all to see this happen. I have zero cultural affinity with the kind of people who might vote for a Pat Buchanan, or who listen to right-wing talk radio. In fact, if they came to power - actual power, that is, not our present presidential farce - I would think really hard about leaving the country. I grew up listening to NPR, my John Hockenberry impression remains one of the seven wonders of the world, and if I raise my voice against the blue-state elite, it's because I think their irresponsible and narcissistic policies are leading us closer every day to exactly this result.

Posted by: Mencius on April 22, 2007 4:34 PM

I can't believe people have so much idle time on their hands that they can write endless blog comments that are more like mini-essays. Really, if you're one of them, do something productive.

Twisted Fascination Dept:
Now the Seattle school board is shipping off selected Students and faculty to a "White Studies" seminar in Arizona. Check it out at the home page of the Seattle School Board (Sorry, I don't know how to do links in comments). You think, for a moment, that you are cought in an outrageous short story by Jonathan Swift.

You'd think some adult with common sense would stand up and say, "Sorry we (as a society) didn't discard one misguided racial obssession to take up a whole new one. Dr. Martin Luther King's vision of a color blind society is both heroic and obtainable, but not by stepping into Alice's looking glass.